Hadrien Mamou

In this essay, I will examine Broome’s argument in Weighing Goods (1991; sections 5.4 and 5.5) that aims to show that moderate Humeanism, according to which any coherent sets of preferences should be rationally acceptable, is not a sustainable view of decision theory. I will focus more specifically on the argument Broome uses to support his claim, and show that although it may get some traction, it does not undermine moderate Humeanism as we know it. After reconstructing Broome’s argument, I argue that standard decision theory supposes that the representation of a decision problem fully captures what is relevant to the agent, and therefore has nothing to say about the legitimacy of the representation in question. I argue that although Broome’s criticism does not jeopardize moderate Humeanism, it does pave the way for a new area of research in decision theory.

This paper defends extensionality, a principle of normative rationality according to which the value of an option should not depend on the way it is represented or framed. It considers two accounts of decision-theoretic representation challenging the principle, Schick’s theory of understandings (1992) and Bermúdez’s theory of frames (2020). Both contend that in certain situations of inner conflict, one may knowingly and rationally see or grasp the same option under several perspectives leading to different evaluations of the option. I argue that situations of conflicts do not constitute a convincing case against extensionality and offer an alternative model of conflict where decision-theoretic consequences are intensional properties of the option. This second model is more appealing as it treats inner conflict as an inability to weigh the consequences of the same action and is consistent with extensionality. I end the paper with a discussion of what Bermúdez calls factual propositions and defend the view that the specification of factual propositions is not evaluatively neutral for the decision-maker. This suggests that all specifications of decision problems and their consequences are value-driven

In this essay, I will examine Broome’s argument in Weighing Goods (1991; sections 5.4 and 5.5) that aims to show that moderate Humeanism, according to which any coherent sets of preferences should be rationally acceptable, is not a sustainable view of decision theory. I will focus more specifically on the argument Broome uses to support his claim, and show that although it may get some traction, it does not undermine moderate Humeanism as we know it. After reconstructing Broome’s argument, I argue that standard decision theory supposes that the representation of a decision problem fully captures what is relevant to the agent, and therefore has nothing to say about the legitimacy of the representation in question. I argue that although Broome’s criticism does not jeopardize moderate Humeanism, it does pave the way for a new area of research in decision theory.